The Emotional Spectrum of a Pandemic
Every day is a new cocktail of feelings
The emotions I am experiencing during this time are unpredictable, overwhelming, and complex. Here’s just a sample:
Loneliness
I wake up most days with a strange feeling — as if I’m in a cabin somewhere very far away from the rest of the world, even though I’m really just at the end of a street in a suburban neighborhood. There’s a paper shade over my south-facing window in addition to the fabric curtains that allows me to open those curtains and let light in without sacrificing my privacy at a window that faces a three-way intersection, and the morning light at this time of year makes a slow, gray crawl through that paper shade, into the room, always making me think there are storm clouds outside.
Then I get up and open the east-facing window in the living room and am blinded by the sunlight. Nope, not cloudy, at all.
The streets are quiet. No buses going by. No one leaving for their morning commute.
It feels like I’ve fallen into a parallel universe.
My first thought every single morning is how much I miss my family. How much I miss going to the ranch and hanging out with my mom and brother, Jack. How much I miss my nieces and nephews, Alex in particular…
